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“They act ignorantly and calumniously who say that God is made the author of sin, if all things
come to pass by His will and ordinance; because they make no distinction between the
depravity of men and the hidden appointments of God.”[Quoted by Warfield, Studies in
Theology, p. 194.] (3) It should be noted that that with which God decided to pass some men
by, is not His common but his special, His regenerating, grace, the grace that changes sinners
into saints. It is a mistake to think that in this life the reprobate are entirely destitute of God’s
favor. God does not limit the distribution of His natural gifts by the purpose of election. He does
not even allow election and reprobation to determine the measure of these gifts. The
reprobate often enjoy a greater measure of the natural blessings of life than the elect. What
effectively distinguishes the latter from the former is that they are made recipients of the
regenerating and saving grace of God.
b. Proof for the doctrine of reprobation.
The doctrine of reprobation naturally follows from the
logic of the situation. The decree of election inevitably implies the decree of reprobation. If the
all-wise God, possessed of infinite knowledge, has eternally purposed to save some, then He
ipso facto also purposed not to save others. If He has chosen or elected some, then He has by
that very fact also rejected others. Brunner warns against this argument, since the Bible does
not in a single word teach a divine predestination unto rejection. But it seems to us that the
Bible does not contradict but justifies the logic in question. Since the Bible is primarily a
revelation of redemption, it naturally does not have as much to say about reprobation as about
election. But what it says is quite sufficient, cf. Matt. 11:25,26; Rom. 9:13,17,18,21,22; 11:7;
Jude 4; I Pet. 2:8.
E. Supra- and Infralapsarianism.
The doctrine of predestination has not always been presented in exactly the same form.
Especially since the days of the Reformation two different conceptions of it gradually emerged,
which were designated during the Arminian controversy as Infra- and Supralapsarianism.
Already existing differences were more sharply defined and more strongly accentuated as the
results of the theological disputes of that day. According to Dr. Dijk the two views under
consideration were in their original form simply a difference of opinion respecting the question,
whether the fall of man was also included in the divine decree. Was the first sin of man,
constituting his fall, predestinated, or was this merely the object of divine foreknowledge? In
their original form Supralapsarianism held the former, and Infralapsarianism, the latter. In this
sense of the word Calvin was clearly a Supralapsarian. The later development of the difference
between the two began with Beza, the successor of Calvin at Geneva. In it the original point in
dispute gradually retires into the background, and other differences are brought forward, some
of which turn out to be mere differences of emphasis. Later Infralapsarians, such as Rivet,